SNIPPETS

[ukan]

Lark is, at most, an inch taller and a few years older than Barron. When Lark enters a room, the wolves there sit up as men, or flatten themselves down a little as wolves. When Barron walks in, most of the time with a smirk on his lips, they grin but they give him space.

One day Barron interrupts training. He calls the dogs in from fifty miles away, he breaks up sparring, he stops them as they assemble weapons. The only wolf not present is Lark.

The pack knows this routine well. Their eyes don't stray and they wait, they wait, while Barron draws the anticipation out as far as he can.

"We're learning a new game!" Baron finally says. His grin implies blood and sets the pack shifting on their feet, murmuring in small, excited noises.

But that's when Baron throws down a deck of cards and lets them stare at it a moment.

"Lark got me up at 2 this morning to learn this game, and now you're all going to master it." Aside from when the cards first landed, there's no confusion. No sideways looks. No questions.

Baron gives them the basics. The game they're playing is Bridge. Yes, like the old ladies play. Like the rich old ladies play. Baron doesn't pull away until the boys are focused on their individual matches.

He finds Lark in the office at the back of the house. Lark is relaxed, like he could be writing in his journal. Probably, though, he's drafting plans for the deaths of people Baron has never even met.

They hear Cutter cheering and Lark looks up again from his computer. Baron shrugs; that cheer is the update he was here to bring. Things are going fine.

Lark smiles and it's warm, it's real approval, and it makes Barron bite back a boyish grin.

Lark gets up and indicates silently that they're going out, away from the pack's ears. They walk for miles in the kind of silence two long-time companions develop, but when Lark stops them and breaks the quiet, his voice is all business.

"There's another pack." Baron stiffens at the news, instinctively ready right then to tear them all apart. "They operate by the docks, but they're pushing this way."

Lark has so much confidence in his voice. It's why the pups never doubt him. Baron doesn't doubt him because he's seen what Lark can do. There's a mingling of admiration and wariness every time he looks at his leader.

"They don't know about us. So I'm sending you in."

It's hard to say if what Baron is feeling is more fear or more excitement, but Lark waits the two seconds it takes for Baron to contain himself.

"Okay. When?"

Lark nods past him to the parking lot across the street. To the sole car there. Lark's cars are all sleek, black, new. This car is rusted and white and a decade or more.

"I left an address in the glove box. It's to the apartment where you'll stay until the other pack takes you in." There's no doubt that Baron will infiltrate them and it makes him straighten, makes him nod. "Two weeks, and I'll check in."

As Baron is walking to the car, Lark says--quietly, because they don't need to shout--simply, "Have fun. Stay sharp."

Comments

[ukan]

The scene doesn't enter on Lark at all. Instead, there's a beautiful woman with black hair and bright blue eyes, humming to herself as she moves through a tiny ground-level apartment. The sun shines through the kitchen window touching jasmine petals, warming the soil in the planter as she waters it. Something else seems to warm her as she makes coffee and curls up in a ratty chair, sipping it black and listening to a man sleeping in the next room.

This girl has scars. Not visible ones; at least not visible above the hem of her white bathrobe. She reads the paper and her smile is gone, replaced with the same vicious intensity that Lark sometimes has. When she finds no immediate signs of trouble she melts back into happiness but it is very clear that happiness is brand new to her.

The man wakes and showers, and when he joins her she climbs onto his lap like she might never have such casual intimacy again. All the sharp edges about her soften as they trade jokes, and she nips him fondly as he heads out the door to work.

But the next morning, the phone rings while they're still in bed. It's not even five yet. She ignores it. Ignores it. Voicemail, voicemail, voicemail, ringing again, and again.

"Maybe you should answer this time," Anthony mumbles, so she does, she wraps the sheet around herself and goes to the living room.

"Hi, Lark."

"Are you all right?"

"Yeah, I'm fine." She takes a long breath. She listens to Anthony in the other room, asleep again. "Lark, I'm not coming back."

He doesn't answer for so long terror begins to creep into her expression.

But instead of a threat he says, "I'm not sure there's anything to come back to." A longer pause. "The house is gone, the pack is gone."

He sounds cold, hard. But not angry. She has no idea if he's feeling anything but when she considers asking--knowing he'll say nothing--his tone abruptly changes to something almost casual.

"I'm going up to Pasadena for a while. I don't know when I'll be back, but do me a favor, okay?"

"What's that, Lark?"

"Just answer when I call." He isn't admonishing her, just asking a favor, as one person to another and not the leader to his girl. He's let her go, but if she lets him go, he will probably die.

"All right, Lark, I'll answer."

They hang up and her expression changes, worried again, and she looks at the windows because he never even asked where she was or why she wanted to leave.

[ukan]

Lark wasn't exaggerating when he said that girls are the center of a pack. His video opens again on a girl, this one new. She's softer than any of the others Lark has ever been seen with, including on the Barge just among friends.

This girl smiles easily; not like Annie does, but more like she has an easy reason for it. Like she's used to it. Her hair is perfectly made up, her clothes are a little dirty because of the dogs running around and running back to her. The muscle she does have is clearly gym-made, and not from anything practical, like a model's.

Lark is younger with her, not as young as with Violet but young enough that he tussles with the pack. He laughs, he makes cruel jokes for no reason except to see the subject flinch. He is the only one who doesn't hover near her, craving a kind word or a touch, but when she scowls at him his jagged sense of humor softens. At least for a little while.

The scene cuts to the girl driving miles north and east. Her delicate features are set in a frown, and her hand tap-tap-taps endlessly on the steering wheel. A mile back, a black sports car follows.

The house she pulls up to is almost a palace. Two Dobermans race out to greet her car, but the moment they smell her their wagging tails stop, their hackles raise, their teeth flash. She climbs over the seats and jumps out the other side, and narrowly makes it inside.

Lark, in that black car, waits at the curb and listens.